Page 338 - middlemarch

‘You made a bad hand at swapping when you went to any-
body but me, Vincy! Why, you never threw your leg across
a finer horse than that chestnut, and you gave him for this
brute. If you set him cantering, he goes on like twenty saw-
yers. I never heard but one worse roarer in my life, and that
was a roan: it belonged to Pegwell, the corn-factor; he used
to drive him in his gig seven years ago, and he wanted me
to take him, but I said, ‘Thank you, Peg, I don’t deal in wind-
instruments.’ That was what I said. It went the round of the
country, that joke did. But, what the hell! the horse was a
penny trumpet to that roarer of yours.’
‘Why, you said just now his was worse than mine,’ said
Fred, more irritable than usual.
‘I said a lie, then,’ said Mr. Bambridge, emphatically.
‘There wasn’t a penny to choose between ‘em.’
Fred spurred his horse, and they trotted on a little way.
When they slackened again, Mr. Bambridge said—
‘Not but what the roan was a better trotter than yours.’
‘I’m quite satisfied with his paces, I know,’ said Fred, who
required all the consciousness of being in gay company to
support him; ‘I say his trot is an uncommonly clean one, eh,
Horrock?’
Mr. Horrock looked before him with as complete a neu-
trality as if he had been a portrait by a great master.
Fred gave up the fallacious hope of getting a genuine
opinion; but on reflection he saw that Bambridge’s deprecia-
tion and Horrock’s silence were both virtually encouraging,
and indicated that they thought better of the horse than
they chose to say.